Still paying a #Div/0 valuation for Facebook or Twitter based on expectations of exponential growth in eyeballs, or rather "eyeballs"? Then perhaps read this first.
... many of the “users” on social media sites aren’t real people at all – they’re celebrity staff tweeting on behalf of their employer, or PRs promoting a company, or even fake accounts for people that don’t exist at all. In fact, half of all Twitter accounts created in 2013 have already been deleted.
These fake accounts are often created by unscrupulous firms that will beef up your follower count in return for cold hard cash.
“Twitter is in the centre of public interest and politicians or companies are often ranked by number of followers or re-tweets or the like – so, there is a whole “web optimisation” industry offering services to make you look better on Twitter – everybody can buy 10,000 followers for $5,” Pfeffer said.
Source: Forbes [4] [4]
